The elevator installation is installed in a substantially vertical shaft. It essentially consists of a car and a counterweight which are arranged to be movable in the shaft in opposite sense along guide rails. The car and the counterweight are connected together and supported by means of a support means. A state of the support means is monitored by means of a support means monitoring unit.
A support cable monitoring unit for ascertaining the state of a support cable of an elevator installation is known from patent document JP 2004149317, which unit is arranged in the engine room in the vicinity of a drive engine or also at a guide rail in the vicinity of the drive engine of this elevator installation. In this case a mounting enables fastening of the support cable monitoring unit to a drive engine foundation or to a guide rail. The mounting relieves a user from holding the support cable monitoring unit. The arrangement in the vicinity of the drive engine has the obvious advantage that—during travel over a height of the shaft—principally loaded sections of the support means are detected. The support cable monitoring unit can be connected with an evaluating unit.
A disadvantage of this arrangement is that on the one hand the support cables, which are moved along the support cable monitoring unit, can damage or scratch scanning surfaces of the support cable monitoring unit or that edges of the support cable monitoring unit damage a support cable. Moreover, present-day elevators are increasingly provided with belt-like support means instead of support cables. In this case the support cable is no longer recognizable as a single support cable, but is disposed in a casing enclosing several cables. Such belt-like support means are particularly sensitive, since the surrounding casing consists of rubber or plastic material.